I read an article today in Sojourner’s online magazine by Jim Wallis called “It is time to end this war”. This war is the war in Afghanistan. Now if we could only get half the people who believe this to do something about ending it.

A friend of mine that came for dinner tonight was at the U.S. Social Forum last week in Detroit that drew over 20,000 activists. There were hundreds if not thousands of issues considered. I asked her if there was a consensus of activists to work on ending the war in Afghanistan. She said no but there were some new issues brought to the attention of the activists.

Call me old fashioned and a person of the sixties to think that if we could all work together on one or two issues, like we did in the sixties with ending the war in Vietnam and Civil Rights, we could be more effective. The response usually is that there are many more issues now and they are worth it. I agree with that but by spreading ourselves thinner I believe we are less effective on all issues. Ending the war in Afghanistan by soldiers refusing to fight and stopping spending on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would do a lot more for the environment, immigration policy and all the many issues that concern us.

If the people could win on one or two issues it would mean unleashing the power of nonviolence that would affect other issues of concern. But instead, with the encouragement of the ‘powers that be’ or as Thomas Merton called them “the unspeakable powers”, we stay scattered and not united in action.

The dinner, cookout, tonight was a time to evaluate our last “Freedom March of Breaking the Silence” and to prepare for our next march. We talked about persons we can invite for the next march. Someone mentioned there were almost a thousand members of Peace Action that was the leading organization in ending the war. Now the organization is involved lightly in many actions and we feel that if we could get only about 10 or 15 members of Peace Action at the next march we would be successful. It is time to end this war but can we work together to do it?

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